Tough Questions

Caleb's favorite phrase is, "I have a question." I've written before that sometimes I have the answers, but a lot of times I don't. Tonight was one of those times that I had no idea how to answer...

Dad had found a baby bunny rabbit at my Grandma's house. Apparently, her dog had packed it onto the porch and Dad had rescued it. I'm no animal expert, but I have seen death in the face of patients I've cared for, and I knew when I looked at that rabbit that it was going to die. Maybe not tonight, but soon. Caleb, on the other hand, did not. He was so excited! He got a little milk and a dropper and tried to feed it. He wrapped it in an old tee-shirt in a box and looked up how to care for a rabbit.

  And when we got home from Pig out in the Park, the inevitable happened... the rabbit was dead. He cried. Much more than what I thought. "But I tried, Mommy. Everything that I knew to do. Why does God do this?"

Wow... how do you answer that one, oh Mom who never has answers to easy questions. So we talked about sin and how because of it everything has to die. We talked about heaven and how I wasn't sure that animals go there, but that God has a purpose. My Dad talked about how God knew when even the smallest sparrow fell from the sky so that he knew the rabbit had died.

We had a burial. Dad let Caleb help him put the rabbit in a box and wrap it up. He wrote the rabbit's name on the box. Dad dug a hole (not 6 foot, as Caleb wanted, but a much more shallow hole, in proportion to the size of the rabbit.) Dad spoke over the rabbit, and we said a prayer. We did not read scripture or sing as Caleb wanted. I fought back tears while trying not to laugh, too... because it was just precious.

  I still don't know all the answers, and I never will. But I do know that when I don't know the answers, and when we are full of sorrow over things we don't understand, God knows. He knows how we feel, and He knows how to comfort us. His grace is sufficient.